Lawn Mowing Simulator – Retrospective #6 – Employees!

Here we are once again for another Lawn Mowing Simulator retrospective and today we’re looking at Employees. 

Obviously, lots of businesses have employees, and growing a mowing business should be no different. The reasons for having them in-game are obvious… but they actually pose quite a challenge to balancing the game. Not effective enough and they’re pointless, but too effective and they’re like a cheat code.

Luckily, Game Director Rick Payne is here to explain more.

Q: Rick – employees in-game definitely increase the options you have in terms of how you progress. What was the background to their inclusion in the game?

Rick: I think it’s fair to say that while taking care of gardens is the primary activity in the game, LMS is also a game about building a business – and while your bank account or equipment roster is one way to judge progress, you also want to feel like you’re growing a team.

So adding your first employee feels significant – but it also gives you more options. Of course, it means your business can complete more contracts at a time, which means more income. But you can also start to pick and choose a bit more, so if there are locations or tasks you’d prefer to avoid, you can send an employee instead!

Q: How did you work out the right balance for employees? It’s easy for them to be either underpowered or overpowered…

Rick: It was honestly a feature that on paper seemed like an easy one, but balancing the impact of employees on the career proved much more difficult in practice.

What had never occurred to me was that some players out there didn’t want to cut grass… in a game about cutting grass! So some players would hire their employees and send them out to complete cutting contracts while the player completed a quicker litter contract instead.

This meant the mid-game balance was thrown a little bit since players were earning money way faster than we anticipated.

Q: Will employees once again be a feature for LMS2, and if so are there any changes we might look ahead to, or do you think it will be a similar experience to LMS1?

Rick: Well, we certainly learned a lot from LMS1, and I can confirm employees are planned in LMS2 currently. I can’t say too much more right now beyond that, but we’re investigating ways to better balance them and their effect on the game’s economy.

That’s all for now – but If there’s something from the original game you’d like us to talk about, let us know!

Be sure to join the Skyhook Games Discord join for all the LMS1 Retrospectives as well as all the latest on Lawn Mowing Simulator 2. Click here!